Radio 2.5

[gurnemanz]

Email to Breakfast producer, sent today:

Please will you desist from the practice of running as trailers brief snippets of works to be broadcast in the last hour? I have become tolerant of individual movements from multi-movement works being broadcast. But broadcasting these severed fragments of much-loved works is an insult to the composer, to the artists and to the intelligence and taste of the Radio Three audience.

I emailed this to the breakfast show a few months ago, before giving up completely, since which time it appears to have become even worse.

"I have noticed that recently Breakfast has become much more chatty, bitty and presenter-orientated. For talk we have Radios Four and Five Live. Even Rob has latterly started playing more and more hackneyed famous bits and isolated movements that tend to drive me away. Playing one movement of an integral work undermines the composer's intention and you should know better. More than once, in frustration, I have switched the radio off to conclude the work via CD. I don't use Twitter or Facebook and have little interest in it. You clearly want to embrace new trends, but you should not do so just by using trivial bits and pieces from listeners. Radio Three is our only intelligent source of classical music (i.e. not the Middle of Road commercialism of Classic FM) and many long-standing and loyal listeners are alienated by this approach, so just do the job and play the music."

[french frank]

The Guardian has at last broken its silence - by sending in a newbie, without much knowledge of classical music, to listen to R3 and see whether he felt at home or not. Well, it's a new angle.

Nevertheless, he doesn't seem quite sure (but he likes Late Junction) ...

[Stillhomewardbound]

Well, more and more, too much of Radio 3's out is produced by people who don't actually listen to radio themselves.

I'm convinced of that.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well i don't listen to radio much anymore either

as for the Grauniad and music, seems to me to have lost the plot on serious music .... just for kids and ageing rockabillies who are nostalgic for Nirvana ...noone seems to have noticed but the graun has become a quite dreadful newspaper ...stale repeating itself, smug and trying like hell to flog itself to kids .... bit like the bbc eh?

[french frank]

well i don't listen to radio much anymore either

Me neither. I was emailed by someone who asked whether I really used to listen to R3 for 8 hours a day, as I had claimed 'on air'. I had to admit that I'd forgotten how many hours there were in a day and was trying to think of a reasonable number. Though 8 hours would only represent 3 insomniac hours of TTN, plus part of Radio 3's morning output: e.g.

6:00am Morning on 3
With Penny Gore. 6.00 Hildegard of Bingen: O ignis spiritus paracliti. Sequentia. 6.45 Mendelssohn: Serenade and Allegro giocoso. CBSO/Lawrence Foster. 7.05 Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat, D960, as recommended in CD Review's Building a Library. 7.30 Saint-Saens: Violin Concerto No 1 in A. Philippe Graffin, BBC Scottish SO/Martyn Brabbins. 8.00 Strauss: Divertimento after Couperin. Orpheus CO. 8.30 Offenbach: Overture `Orpheus in the Underworld'. Philharmonia/Neville Marriner.
9:00am Composer of the Week: Ravel
With Donald Macleod. Bolero. LSO/Claudio Abbado. Piano Concerto in G (1st mvt). Louis Lortie, LSO/Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. Nahandove (Chansons madecasses). Jessye Norman (soprano), Michel Debost (flute), Renaud Fontanerosa (cello), Dalton Baldwin (piano). Piano Concerto for the left hand. Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Montreal SO/Charles Dutoit.
10:00am Work in Progress: Jeanette Winterson
The author of `Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' talks about the progress of her new novel and about her life as a writer.
10:05am Masterworks
With Peter Hobday. Schubert: Symphony No 5 in B flat. RPO/Thomas Beecham. 10.32 Berg: Schlafen, schlafen; Schlafend tragt man mich, Op 2 Nos 1 and 2. 10.37 Berg: Violin Concerto. Josef Suk, Czech PO/Vaclav Neumann. 11.03 Suk: Symphonic Poem `Praga'. Czech PO/Libor Pesek.

[teamsaint]

well i don't listen to radio much anymore either

as for the Grauniad and music, seems to me to have lost the plot on serious music .... just for kids and ageing rockabillies who are nostalgic for Nirvana ...noone seems to have noticed but the graun has become a quite dreadful newspaper ...stale repeating itself, smug and trying like hell to flog itself to kids .... bit like the bbc eh?

Just following a different side of the same agenda as all the other papers.

Don't trust any of them, they are all part of a system designed to enslave us.
inform yourself elsewhere, and free yourself from THEIR agenda...its the least we deserve.

[barber olly]

Me neither. I was emailed by someone who asked whether I really used to listen to R3 for 8 hours a day, as I had claimed 'on air'. I had to admit that I'd forgotten how many hours there were in a day and was trying to think of a reasonable number. Though 8 hours would only represent 3 insomniac hours of TTN, plus part of Radio 3's morning output: e.g.

6:00am Morning on 3
With Penny Gore. 6.00 Hildegard of Bingen: O ignis spiritus paracliti. Sequentia. 6.45 Mendelssohn: Serenade and Allegro giocoso. CBSO/Lawrence Foster. 7.05 Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat, D960, as recommended in CD Review's Building a Library. 7.30 Saint-Saens: Violin Concerto No 1 in A. Philippe Graffin, BBC Scottish SO/Martyn Brabbins. 8.00 Strauss: Divertimento after Couperin. Orpheus CO. 8.30 Offenbach: Overture `Orpheus in the Underworld'. Philharmonia/Neville Marriner.
9:00am Composer of the Week: Ravel
With Donald Macleod. Bolero. LSO/Claudio Abbado. Piano Concerto in G (1st mvt). Louis Lortie, LSO/Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. Nahandove (Chansons madecasses). Jessye Norman (soprano), Michel Debost (flute), Renaud Fontanerosa (cello), Dalton Baldwin (piano). Piano Concerto for the left hand. Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Montreal SO/Charles Dutoit.
10:00am Work in Progress: Jeanette Winterson
The author of `Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' talks about the progress of her new novel and about her life as a writer.
10:05am Masterworks
With Peter Hobday. Schubert: Symphony No 5 in B flat. RPO/Thomas Beecham. 10.32 Berg: Schlafen, schlafen; Schlafend tragt man mich, Op 2 Nos 1 and 2. 10.37 Berg: Violin Concerto. Josef Suk, Czech PO/Vaclav Neumann. 11.03 Suk: Symphonic Poem `Praga'. Czech PO/Libor Pesek.

No doubt PH was majoring on the CPO

Those were the days my friend
Why did they ever end
I'd listen to stuff like that
Forever and a day

Moreover it was all there to plan listening in the Radio Times (Another thing which is not what it was, but don't get me started...)

However were the seeds there Peter Hobday former Today frontman as celeb presenter. Was Work in Progress the forerunner of the guest oin Essential Classics. Bolero on the agenda!
By the way what was on 1200 -1300 in those days.

[french frank]

WIP wasn't exactly a celeb spot. It wasn't musical at all and not intended to be. Just 5 minutes where artists in various genres spoke about what they were currently working on. I remember Margaret Drabble talking about her current novel, and I think Edmund de Waal on ceramics. This was in 2000. PH was a civilised kind of announcer with immaculate foreign pronunciation. Probably on the Richard Baker lines - keen on music but not an expert

By the way what was on 1200 -1300 in those days.

I clicked randomly on a day and didn't notice the date. But the 11.30-1pm programme was Morning Performance, with recorded concert performances and occasionally a relevant guest - I remember Joanna MacGregor being on.

Here's another day, through until 1pm:

6:00am Morning on 3
Including 6.00, 7.00, 8.00 News With Penny Gore. 6.15 Bach arr Brahms: Chaconne in D minor. Michel Beroff (piano left hand). 6.35 Janacek: Lachian Dances. Brno State PO/Frantisek Jilek. 7.00 Beethoven: Rondo a capriccio in G, Op 129 (Rage over a Lost Penny). Evgeny Kissin (piano). 7.20 Handel: Sinfonia (Saul, Act 1). English Concert/Trevor Pinnock. 8.00 Lalo: Scherzo. Suisse Romande Orchestra/Ernest Ansermet. 8.45 Mozart: Violin Sonata in A, K305. Szymon Goldberg, Radu Lupu (piano).

9:00am Composers of the Week: Chavez and Revueltas
Donald Macleod and conductor Odaline de la Martinez discuss works written by Chavez and Revueltas for the stage and screen. Revueltas: Nets (Suite `Redes', from the film score). Chavez: Suite `Horse Power'. Simon Bolivar SO of Venezuela/Eduardo Mata. Revueltas: Suite `La noche de los Mayas' (from the film score) (exc). BBC SO/Grant Llewellyn.

10:00am Work in Progress: Anatomy of a Madman
Actor Patrick Miller reflects on the process of writing and rehearsing his new one-man show at the Bristol Old Vic about the effects of racism on a young black student.

10:05am Masterworks
With Stephanie Hughes. Handel ed Dart: Harp Concerto in F, Op 4 No 5. Osian Ellis (harp), Thurston Dart (organ continuo), Philomusica of London/Granville Jones. 10.14 Franck: Prelude, aria et final. Robert Silverman (piano). 10.39 Offenbach-Rosenthal: Offenbachiana. Monte Carlo PO/Manuel Rosenthal. 11.02 Bach: French Suite No 1 in D minor, BWV812. Thurston Dart (clavichord). 11.11 Attrib Purcell ed Britten: When night her purple veil had softly spread. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), members of the Alberni Quartet, Benjamin Britten (piano).

11:30am Morning Performance Artists in Focus: Ann Murray and Felicity Lott
Five programmes in which Humphrey Burton talks to mezzo Ann Murray and soprano Felicity Lott. 4: `The Exotic'. Rossini: La regata veneziana (Les soirees musicales). Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Graham Johnson (piano). Ravel: Sheherazade: Felicity Lott, BBC Concert Orchestra/Ian Hooker. Granados: El mirar de la maja; Amor y adio. Ann Murray, Anthony Saunders (piano). Berlioz: Nuits d'ete. Ann Murray, ECO/Raymond Leppard Villa-Lobos: Bacchiana brasileira No 5. Felicity Lott, Cellos of the London Sinfonia/David Atherton. Rossini: La pesca; Anzoleta co passa la regata; La promessa. Ann Murray, Felicity Lott, Graham Johnson (piano).

[Stillhomewardbound]

** Agree entirely re: the grauniad ... it was the paper I grew up with and one never felt inclined to try another paper. That was then, but these days it is as if to pick up a style sheet and personally speaking, I still came from a land where the latest anticipated pop CD of someone, or another, or indeed, the announcement of a new series of Mad Men or whatever it maybe should be billed as news items up there with global financial crisis, urban strife, et al ... Well, it's all of a nonsense.

** French Frank ... you'd be right about the 8 hours. When I'm not day-jobbing R3 is on in my flat all the day, and in the evening too. That's why the likes of me bang so much about its shortcomings. We are the core listeners and we are loyal in steady numbers, so why make this network a variety of strumpet!

[BetweenTheStaves]

Ah, SHB, it's not just things like the gruniad. Hype over content has taken over. For example, I was intrigued to avail myself of the free downloads that came with my nice bottle of Becks. To download, "go to our website at www.becks.com". It has been a long time since I have seen such a pretentious, content-free, vacuous, so full of itself that it redefines the term 'naff' website. The 'h' is silent in that last word, by the way.

And I never found out how to get my free downloads.

[Don Petter]

And in any event, Wetroc is for me absolutely THE wrongest presentation style and voice they could have engaged for it. Just one bite of that drawl as I surface is enough to galvanise me into the first action of he day - turn him off.

I haven't yet dared to sample the new format, partly because, like others, I gave up listening to weekday R3 before noon some time ago, but I agree that his presentation is most unattractive, sounding like permanent disdain, as if he has just noticed something the dog has done under the dining room table.

[kernelbogey]

The utterly hideous trailing of forthcoming items on Breakfast with bleeding gobbets of music brutally hacked from the score continues at both 0659 and 0759.

No doubt PT is a good chap, moderately interested in music, but his microphone technique is utterly unsuited to reading news or weather. He has a habit of dramatising sentences with irrational emphases, ignoring full stops and inserting. pauses where they don't. belong. Another own goal from the Radio 2.5 mob.

B***** me, now we have O Sole Mio.

[exits left, head in hands]

[Nick Armstrong]

his microphone technique is utterly unsuited to reading news or weather. He has a habit of dramatising sentences with irrational emphases, ignoring full stops and inserting. pauses where they don't. belong.

I couldn't agree more. It's doubly annoying when he voices those various trailers, injecting a portentousness ("Mahler. Live. From Manchester") that I find ridiculous.

Currently enjoying a very good Duruflé 'Requiem' from Tuesday night's TTN, perfect gentle start after a late bottle of Chasse-Spleen with a visiting friend and far too little sleep...

[Paul Sherratt]

>> a late bottle of Chasse-Spleen

Is that what's called a ' Charlie Sheen ' south of the river ?

[kernelbogey]

Was it the vintage or the hour that was late?